Fundamental Science

Fundamental Science at the Nanoscale

The NanoCenter community includes a strong focus on fundamental science, enabled particularly by
advances in experimental techniques and increasingly by computational sciences.
The invention of the scanning tunneling microscope, a primary driver for nanoscience, stimulated
UMD researchers to lead the development of a portfolio of related scanning nanoprobe techniques,
and the NanoCenter benefits from its members who created this legacy. NanoCenter researchers have
also pushed the forefronts of in-situ electron microscopy, nanoparticle synthesis, spin-polarized
electrons and magnetic phenomena, low-dimensional carbon nanostructures (such as nanotubes and
graphene), nano-confined electrochemistry, and single-molecule and single-cell studies. New
scientific challenges are also emerging at the meso scale - bridging nano to micro - from phenomena
that appear when nanostructures are massively aggregated as required for key applications.